that which has been lost
by tellmamatobuggeroff
Summary: Belts, beatings, blood, guns, malnutrition, padded rooms, sleeping aids, needles, therapists, and suicide are all Blaine can remember from years 1-9 of his life. Truth or dare is a silly, fun game, until someone admits to being screwed up.  T for implied


Warning: Mentions of self-harm.

When Kurt and Blaine finally start dating, everyone is thrilled. After all, Blaine is dapper, adorable, a straight A student, a fantastic sing, and pretty much all around perfect. Who wouldn't want their son (or best friend) to date someone that has such a good head on his shoulders? New Directions invites him to tag along on this shopping trip and this quadruple date with most of the couples of New Directions. Burt invites him over for dinner and, although he receives the standard 'if you hurt my son, no one will find your body' speech, he seems to like Blaine well enough, and of course Carole adores him. Finn is wary, but warms up to him almost as soon as Blaine mentions football.

This is why Blaine is invited to a New Directions party at Kurt's house. Burt and Carole are hanging out with the kids, which Blaine finds slightly odd, but the rest of New Directions, except for Puck, who wants to break out the alcohol, don't mind the presence of parental figures. In fact, they all seem to like Burt and Carole as much as they like each other. Carole talks boys with the girls and Burt talks sports with the guys. All is well until Rachel yells something about Truth or Dare.

"Okay, I'm going to explain the rules for Blaine, Burt, Carole, and Lauren who haven't played before. The rest of you can be quiet while I talk." Rachel says primly. Everyone rolls their eyes but lets her continue. "You can opt out of a dare only if you answer a very personal question that will be decided upon by the person asking you originally. You _have_ to answer if you choose truth, though, there's no getting out of that.

Everyone agrees and the game hurriedly commences.

"Okay, Finn. Truth or Dare." It's Santana's turn, and Finn is wise enough to choose truth. There's no telling what she might dare him to do.

"Truth."

Santana pouts for a minute, but gets over it. "That girl, last year at that one party." Santana prompts and Finn pales and then shudders in horror. "What went down?"

"She was a dude!" Finn sputters. "We were getting naked and then Bam! She is a he! No offense Kurt or Blaine, but oh my god that was the worst moment of my life! And then to add to that, he dropped the whole 'girl' thing and ripped off his wig and…" Finn trails off as the group gives into the laughter they've been battling since the beginning. Even Burt, who looks a little nauseous, and Carole, who looks as reprimanding as you would expect, are laughing.

"Whatever." Finn grumbles at them. "My turn. Uh…" He takes a few moments to decide and then looks at Blaine. "You, small hobbit. Truth or dare?"

"First, that was redundant. Second, oh, dare I guess." Blaine sighs whimsically.

"I dare you to drink coke through my sock." Finn announces the dare like he's announcing the cure for cancer and doesn't notice the horrified looks from everyone else until he looks around for encouragement.

"I'm going to have to pass." Blaine says, looking at Finn like he needs to be committed.

Finn pouts and then says defensively, in response to the 'are you off your rocker' looks he getting, "I saw it on a movie!"

"Just ask me a ridiculously personal question, Finn." Blaine huffs.

"Okay, you seem, like, perfect. So, what are five of your major flaws that we somehow manage to miss?" Finn prompted. Blaine glared at him briefly.

"Fine. Well, let's see. Um, one: I'm a clean freak. Two: I've got a bit of a temper if pushed too far. Three: I'm dyslexic, but it's rather mild. Four: I've been known to hold grudges." Blaine grimaces noticeably and Kurt makes a note to ask him about that later. "Five: I've got a bit of a Napoleon complex."

"You're dyslexic?" Puck asks. "But you get, like, a shit load of A's. Excuse my French." He mutters with a glance at Burt and Carole, who choose to ignore it.

"I force myself to read it the right way." Blaine replied, feeling uncomfortable.

"You have an anger problem?" Finn says in confusion. "But you're so chill all the time."

"I box." Blaine says shortly. "In the morning and at night. My turn." He cuts the questions short and the game continues.

Twelve people later, it's back to Blaine. Tina is the one asking this time.

"Truth or dare?" She prompts.

"Truth." Blaine has heard the dares everyone has come up with, and decides it's safer to stick with truth.

"Have you ever considered suicide?" Or not. Everyone goes very still at the question and looks at him expectantly. He's frozen, though. He's transported back to a time when the world was filled with anger, yelling, pain, blood, belts, words like 'fag', 'queer', and 'not normal'. He's taken back to the time in his life that he doesn't ever want to think about again when he maybe got a piece of bread to eat every two or so days. He's taken back to gunshots, hiding behind the couch, crying, calling the police, dead bodies on the floor, more yelling, glass breaking because the front door is locked and _there's a fucking kid in there!_ and who knows if that psycho is still alive that killed his wife and now might kill his kid. He's taken back to needles and doctors and psychologists and a white, padded room and countless 'I don't know if he's ever going to get better's and more pain and needles because he won't eat, so they have to stick a needle in his tiny arm and therapists keep trying to get him to share his feelings and he _just wants it to end_, so he grabs a bottle of pills and to this day no one knows how he got a hold of them, not even he himself, and downed them and _it's a fucking miracle they found him in time_.

"Yes." He finds himself saying and the room goes silent. It's so silent he wonders if anyone is breathing. "I was nine."

"You contemplated suicide when you were _nine_?" Burt breaks in and this is the first time he's said anything in about a half hour.

"My dad was a drinker." Blaine says flatly. "He used to beat me and my mom. She was a druggie. I'd get locked up in my room for days. Sometimes they forgot to feed me. Sometimes they didn't feed me on purpose. One day he drank too much and lost it. He grabbed a gun and killed her, and then he killed himself. I called the cops from where I was hiding behind the couch. I was a fucked up little kid. They stuck me in a padded room and called therapists from all over the country to try to get me to talk and get better. I stopped eating; I stopped drinking, so they tried harder. I don't know how, but I got a bottle of pills and swallowed them. Extra strength sleeping pills for the more messed up patients. It was about seven minutes before they found me. No one knows how I survived. I was tiny and I hadn't eaten anything solid for about a week and a half so there wasn't anything to slow the digestion of the pills." Blaine breaks off, his eyes watery by now. "I just wanted it to stop."

Everyone is silent, staring at him in horror. He can feel Kurt's gaze, but doesn't have the strength to meet his gaze and have pity or sympathy or disgust look back at him.

"If you'll excuse me." Blaine murmurs, getting up and going out the back door. No one calls him back.

"Blaine!" Kurt's voice is almost inaudible as Blaine gets into his car. The sound of beating rain on the roof nearly drowns it out. Somehow, he hears it, though and waits for Kurt to climb in next to him. When he does, Blaine pulls out of the driveway and then just drives. Finally, he pulls over in some abandoned parking lot about ten minutes from Kurt's house.

"Are you okay?" Kurt whispers and Blaine only has to shake his head for Kurt to pull him close and hug him tight. "Shhh…" Kurt makes soft cooing noises as Blaine sobs into his neck.

After he has gotten rid of his tears, and thoroughly soaked Kurt's shirt in the process, Blaine pulls away and wipes his eyes.

"You don't hate me?" He sniffs.

"I could never hate you, Blaine. Why _would_ I hate you?" Kurt whispers, stroking the shorter boy's hair out of his eyes. Kurt pulls him into the backseat so they can snuggle together. "It isn't your fault, what you're dad did."

"I shouldn't have tried to kill myself." Blaine mumbles.

"You were going through a tough time, and you were nine." Kurt shushes him when he tries to protest. "You were _nine_, Blaine. A nine year old cannot be expected to pull himself together after those many years of abuse."

Blaine whimpers and Kurt hugs him tighter.

"If I can ask… How did you get better? It seemed like you had pretty much given up, and I'm just curious… you don't have to answer." Kurt murmurs, hugging Blaine tighter.

"I had a dream." Blaine whispers. "About three weeks after my… suicide attempt… I had a dream. In it, there was a beautiful boy with perfectly coiffed brown hair and glasz eyes. He was extremely fashionable, too, and he had the widest smile. And he was holding my hand and grinning at me and we were watching a curly haired little girl play at a playground. I knew it was me, somehow, and I knew that was my future if I got my act together. So I did. And I got adopted by the people I call my parents now, and they helped me get even better."

"You had a dream of… what, your soul mate?... when you were nine?" Kurt asks, sounding in awe. "That's amazing." Hesitation, and then, "Have you met him?" Blaine turns to face Kurt and cups his face, brushing their lips together ever so gently.

"_You're_ him." He whispers.

_Thirteen Years Later_

"Kurt?" Blaine asks. They're standing in Lima's medium sized playground.

"Yes, Blaine?" His husband turns to him at once. They're holding hands.

"This is my dream." Blaine says softly. Kurt looks confused for a moment before his eyes widen.

"This?"

"Yes, look at Ashley." Blaine coaxes. Kurt does as he's asked. Their little daughter that has Blaine's genes and came from a surrogate, but has Kurt's attitude so much that sometimes Blaine wonders, is sitting in a sandbox, happily playing with a blonde haired, green eyed little boy. She's four years old today. "That is what I saw, but I saw us as well."

Kurt's eyes fill with tears as he is reminded, once again, of what his husband has lost (a mom, a dad, a home, a family, the first nine years of his education and life) and what he has gained in return (love, a family, a home, the rest of his life), and he _knows_ that if Blaine could go back and make his parents nicer, he wouldn't because it led him to Kurt. And that thought is the most humbling of any.

Oh God, I've gone and made myself cry! I hope you liked this, and please review, I appreciate every one and I reply to almost every one.

Disclaimer: Don't own.


End file.
